


A Different Person

by orphan_account



Series: The Library [8]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-12 01:44:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11151582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Last night he had found a picture of Shiro in his jacket. It was from back in their Garrison days. But it wasn’t a picture of stiff upper lips and starched suits. It was a dim picture of Shiro leaning back in a white plastic chair, his feet crossed on a metal railing. Keith remembers taking it, remembers fighting with the flash on the camera to get a good image.





	A Different Person

He was a different person. Oddly enough, it wasn’t something Keith realized right away. Not when Shiro suddenly appeared in an alien escape pod. Not while getting the lions. Not through the first several times they had formed Voltron. 

Keith first realizes it sitting against the wall in the training room, his lungs burning and throat raw as he fights to catch his breath. His hair sticks to his face, pulls between his fingers when he tries to push it out of his eyes, only for it to flop back where it was. 

Last night he had found a picture of Shiro in his jacket. It was from back in their Garrison days. But it wasn’t a picture of stiff upper lips and starched suits. It was a dim picture of Shiro leaning back in a white plastic chair, his feet crossed on a metal railing. Keith remembers taking it, remembers fighting with the flash on the camera to get a good image. 

It had been a day the two of them had snuck out after class on a Friday, made the three hour drive to Vegas only to pen up in a beat down motel outside of the city. No gambling, no traffic, just watching the hazed glow of the strip on the horizon from the tiny balcony of their second story room. A little cooler and a six pack of beers between their chairs, killing hours by making up new constellations out of the brightest stars that managed to fight their way through the light pollution. 

Keith brings his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around them, setting his chin on his knees as he watches Shiro ram a glowing fist through a gladiator bot. He was in a mood to break them today, but instead of giving in to the unease creeping up the back of his neck, Keith thinks about sharing that tiny, uncomfortable motel bed. The feel of a thin comforter over them. The sound of Shiro’s heart under his ear. The flickering glow of the tv on the wall in the early morning hours and his eyes burning from lack of sleep. 

This Shiro, the one that whips around and nearly rips the arm off another gladiator bot, isn’t the same. The Shiro he looks at now isn’t the same Shiro who tucked Keith against his chest as they drove down the hot desert highway at nine in the morning. The one who always ate his pancakes with too much syrup. The one who pressed kisses in his hair every time they stopped and Keith pulled his helmet off. 

He’s different but…

Shiro puts the last gladiator bot down in a rain of sparks, metal screeching on the floor as it tumbles. Shiro stands up straight. Closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath in, lets it out along with all the tension in his shoulders. Keith remembers that little habit from the times Shiro would get frustrated back at home. Whenever he had too much steam to blow off or another one of the officers would wear on his nerves. Usually Keith would see it in the gym whenever Shiro would inevitably burn his irritation off through a long, hard run. The long breath always came at the end of a storm. The long breath that always worked so much better for Shiro than for himself. 

“Sorry about that,” Shiro says, turning to Keith and finding him where he’s curled up against the wall. “It kind of got away from me.” Keith smiles, and the smile Shiro gives him back is genuine and relaxed. Shiro drops to his knees, then rolls on his side besides Keith, his whole body stretched out in a messy way he never would have shown anyone but Keith. Keith hands him a pouch of water and Shiro thanks him breathlessly, crinkling it as he sucks the entire thing down. 

This Shiro was different, but not unrecognizable. In the end, they were basically the same. Keith just had to view him from a different angle.

**Author's Note:**

> @quiddid on tumblr


End file.
